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"Due to increasing demand for Colorado River water by the United States and Mexico, the final stretch of the Lower Colorado has virtually disappeared. It has been decades since the Colorado flowed all the way through Mexico to the Gulf of California. Major spring floods are a rarity, and the lower reaches of the river only flow after rainstorms or when agricultural runoff drains into the dried riverbed."

"The Colorado River flows from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado through the southwestern United States. Along its route, the river passes through an elaborate water-management system designed to tame the yearly floods from spring snowmelt and to provide a reliable supply of water for residents as far away as California. The system is appreciated for the water it supplies, but criticized for the environmental problems and cultural losses that have resulted from its creation."

"As water levels plummet to 45% in America's second-largest reservoir, new islands appear - and fears grow for a waterway that serves 40 million people"

"In their search for renewable electric power, China's engineers have been building mega-dams at a rate unmatched in human history. Many far larger than the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River - which is 221 meters high and capable of generating more than 2,000 megawatts of power - are being constructed on China's greatest rivers. Best known is the Three Gorges Dam, completed in 2008, which stretches a mile-and-a-half across the Yangtze and can generate ten times the hydropower of the Hoover Dam. Yet the Three Gorges is only a fraction of China's current dam programme. "

"Vast lake's water level expected to plunge to levels that predate the construction of the Hoover Dam"